The prior art is generally cognizant of devices particularly designed to separate particles of cheese curd from cheese whey. In making cheese, a precipitate, or "curd", is developed in the milk, after which the remaining liquid section of the milk, termed "whey", is drawn off the curd. These separation devices are generally designed either to initially remove the whey from the curd, or to separate further fine particles of cheese curd from the whey after the whey has been drawn off the main body of curd, in order to achieve an efficiency in the cheesemaking process.
It is known, for example, in the prior art that a screen may be utilized to separate whey from curd particles. Examples of the use of such screens may be seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,695,893 and 3,887,718. Several examples are known of devices which use cylindrical rotating screenlike devices to separate curd from whey. Examples of devices of that type are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,807,608, 3,368,278, and 4,156,384. Another cheese curd-whey separating device utilizing a screen is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,535,784. In addition, the general use of a screen suspended over a tank of fluid for use in connection with dairy products, is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 93,582. Another example is known, that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,019,527 of a cheese manufacturing machine including therein a perforated false bottom for use in squeezing the whey out of the curd during the cheese making process. The general use of rotating scrapers above a filter member having numerous holes therein is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,107,040 in connection with a process for filtering eggs.